


As Iron Sharpens Iron

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Better to Face the Bullets 'verse [13]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: A BtFtB 'verse one-shot. David and Jefferson take Rummond out for a small pre-wedding celebration. Shenanigans ensue and Belle has to be called.





	As Iron Sharpens Iron

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt - _shipperqueen93 prompted: Rum and David go out, maybe for his bachelor party, and somehow results in the two of them in jail for the night. Instead of being terrified like belle expects him to have been she picks him up finding him laughing and smiling with his sheep bro_ ]

She would bloody well learn to drive an automobile, she decided as she waited anxiously on the front steps for Horatio to bring her father’s tourer around. Depending on someone else to take her into town when she should have been able to do it for herself was for the birds.

Belle checked her pendant watch at the end of its chain. Ten minutes it had been since Mrs. Potts summoned her to the telephone with a terrifyingly somber expression on her face. She could have been halfway there by now, were it not for having to take Horatio away from his dinner to drive her. He at last pulled around the side of the house, and she stepped down to meet him as he stopped, waving him off getting out just to open her door.

“As quick as you can, please, Horatio,” she said as she got in.

He raced off down the driveway, understanding where they went and why. “I’ll not spare the horses, miss.”

It took him less than fifteen minutes to reach the police station, and Belle thought he might well have set some manner of record. She flew from the tourer as soon as he parked. Rummond would be panicked, being hauled around and locked up. And if they’d put handcuffs on him…

She ran up the station steps and very nearly into a constable who was on his way out as she went in. The desk wasn’t busy, thankfully, and she hurried right up.

“I’m here for Rummond Gold,” she told the great, square, pinch-faced constable at the desk. “I can pay his fine immediately, but I need you to release him _now.”_

The man blinked at her abruptness. When he didn’t move, her patience ran thin all at once. She was loath to bring her father’s name and standing into anything, but she had to see Rummond.

“Constable-” She glanced to the name plate before going on, finding herself unable to take the edge off her sharp tone. “Constable Fendrake. My name is Belle French. I believe you know my father. Maurice French? The Maurice French who donates to your station’s pension entitlement every quarter? Now, the gentleman in your custody happens to be my fiancé, and I would very much appreciate it if you would see to his release.”

“Miss French…” the man began, speaking slowly to her. “It takes time.”

“If there’s any sort of problem that you can’t see your way around, perhaps I could give my father a call and he might be able to _help_ you see,” Belle finished, and she waited for a better response. 

Constable Fendrake cleared his throat and unfolded himself from behind the desk. “There’s paperwork to be done, but I can escort you back while everything is put in order.”

“Then lead the way,” she told him, drawing herself up as tall as she could. 

Belle followed him through a pitted, beaten door and down a hallway leading to the cells. David and Jefferson had taken Rummond out for a stag night, declaring that it was necessary - nay, required of them as his friends to give him a proper send-off into marriage. Rummond had seemed a bit tentative, but the two other men had talked it up so that he went along. It was meant to be an evening of pub visits and _gentle_ rowdiness. She couldn’t imagine where it had taken a turn into police calls and arrest. He would be in an absolute state.

The constable unlocked a door at the end of the hallway, opening it into a holding area with cells lined up along one side. “Gold is in the third cell down.”

Coming from the cells, there was _laughter._ And not just any laughter. She quite distinctly heard Rummond’s. 

A bit bewildered, Belle stepped past the first two empty cells to approach the third, occupied by the three men who’d left from her own driveway a handful of hours earlier in the evening. She stood there for a moment, hands on her hips and giving them a hard stare, before they became aware of her presence.

“Oh. Oh, nursie,” Jefferson sputtered, the first to see her there. He slapped David’s upper arm and snorted, making an obvious attempt at sobering himself. Which would have been an impressive feat, seeing as he was still visibly a few sheets to the wind. 

Rummond’s face flushed pink right before her eyes. David hiccupped and gave her a sheepish wave, but Jefferson remained utterly unrepentant. They certainly were a trio.

“Would you mind locating my fiancé’s cane, at the very least?” She cast a sidelong look at the constable who had escorted her in. When he turned to go, she shifted her attention back to the cell and asked more softly, “Rum, are you all right?” 

He nodded. “I’m fine, love. I am.”

His words were unslurred, his lilt as clear as it got. She smiled with relief. Her smile turned to an expression of disapproval when she looked to the others. “What in heaven’s name happened?”

All three men set in to start at once. Belle held a hand up to quiet them, and it had the effect she intended.

“One. One of you,” she told them.

Rummond didn’t have a mark on him. She gestured to David, who had a humdinger of a black eye blooming and bloody scrapes across his right knuckles. Jefferson had a cut over his eyebrow and a bruised cheekbone, as well as a split lower lip and knuckles to match David’s, but she doubted that could say his alphabet just now, much less recount the trouble they’d gotten into.

“David,” she said, electing him as a teacher might call upon a student. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t Captain Gold’s fault,” he said first thing. “The Captain here, he was a level head.”

Rummond didn’t drink much when he drank at all, Belle knew. He’d confided that it felt too much like being out of control of himself again, to have much alcohol in him. His limit was an occasional glass of stout when they were out for dinner or being nudged into the rare splash of brandy with her father. David and Jefferson, however, had clearly made up for his moderation. 

“We were up at the bar, this one pub, sat ourselves at the corner with Captain Gold between us,” David explained, giving her the most earnest of looks that still being tipsy would allow. He reached over, clapping a heavy hand onto Rummond’s shoulder. “Everything was _great_ ’til this bunch of hooligans staggered up.”

“Three of them. There were three,” Rummond clarified.

“They saw Captain Gold, decided it was a good idea to pipe up.” With a glance toward Rummond, David hesitated before continuing. “A, uh- this big bastard with a bad undercut spouted off, claiming he recognized the Captain.”

Jefferson somehow found it the ideal time to add his own few pence. “‘Hey, hey, ain’t you that pilot, hid and got his whole damn squadron killed?’” he imitated with rather all the fury that his slur would allow. “Jackasses.”

She saw Rummond cringe and look away from her, and if the constable didn’t come back with a set of keys soon, she had a few more words for him.

 _“Well,”_ David went on. “We weren’t gonna let that go.”

“No, we weren’t!” Jefferson cut in again, nodding his head and then shaking it so fervently that his upper body wobbled.

“Lord,” Belle murmured to herself.

David put a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder, as well. “There might’ve been some words exchanged. I… couldn’t repeat them.”

She was rather certain she’d heard worse, but she decided to ask Rummond about the particulars later. After she had him home and safe. “And I assume that led to the state you’re in?”

“Guy with the undercut threw the first punch. We just, uh… showed them what a fight is. We kept Captain Gold out of it,” David assured her quickly. “Didn’t wanna chance him showing up all beaten and bruised for the big day.”

Belle highly doubted that was the only reason they kept Rummond out of the fray. She couldn’t be truly angry. She _was_ irritated that they ended up arrested, but even that was less at them now she knew what happened. “I’ll hazard the barman called the police?”

“Very likely. They showed up with the paddy wagon and hauled us out, anyway.”

“And your hooligans?”

David cleared his throat, glancing between the men on either side of him before he took his hands back, pressing them between his knees. “I believe I heard somebody mention a hospital?”

She sighed. She wasn’t terribly worried about the men who provoked the entire dustup, though. “Have you called your wives?”

“Not yet,” David said, and Jefferson pulled a pained face.

Belle eyed them thoughtfully. “Well, then. There’s no need. Not just yet, at least.”

It would be less trouble to pay each of their fines than to force them to pay the consequences of a drunken pub fight with Mary Margaret and Alice. They’d gotten into it by defending Rummond, after all, and she couldn’t help having a soft spot for the fact of that. 

“You’ll come home with me, all of you,” she told them. “I’ll patch you up and Mrs. Potts will give you some strong coffee to sober you before you go home to explain yourselves however you wish.”

David and Jefferson seemed to relax a little. She looked to Rummond, beckoning him over with both hands. He limped carefully to her, and she curled her hands around his over the bars. She smiled and he gave her a smile in return with a little duck of his head.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m not angry,” Belle whispered to him. “Did you have a good time?”

Rummond nodded a bit. “I did,” he whispered back to her. “We’d gone through two pubs and two dinners by the time we found the third and a fight.”

She grinned, leaning in and tilting her head up for a kiss. He gave her a peck on the lips - all they could manage until the constable who still took his blasted time returned. Neal had been tucked into bed in the room that once was his for an hour or so, and she’d meant to ask Rummond to take the guest room he’d had over Christmas when he returned. It was just as well. She wanted to keep him close tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> (Takes place around two weeks before their wedding.)


End file.
